Why we need to make it easier to ‘fall into teaching’

Back in 2014, my co-researchers and I spent several months visiting staffrooms in far-flung corners of the country to find out why people chose to become teachers.

One of the things that surprised us was how many teachers had never expected to end up there.

One teacher, Stephanie, called her entry to the profession “a happy mistake”. 

Her mum, a teaching assistant, had invited her in, and after two weeks working with an “inspirational” teacher, she “fell in love with the entire thing”. By the time we met her, she was a deputy head.

The accidental teacher 

Time and again we spoke to teachers like Stephanie who had “got hooked” on teaching, often after a series of fortuitous events precipitated an “accidental” entry into the profession. 

That’s why, alongside colleagues at the Centre for Education and Youth, I’ve long argued that, in order to widen the pool of potential teachers beyond the usual suspects, we need to do more to engineer that kind of happenstance.

I was reminded of this last week when I found myself sitting next to highly qualified graduates at two separate events in Cambridge. The minute I said I worked in education, they started asking me about how they might get into the profession. 

They genuinely seemed to have little idea of the routes available and how to take their first step into education. 

I couldn’t help but think that if, at the end of a three-year degree, someone still needs my advice on how to dip their toe in and find out whether teaching is for them, then something is going wrong. 

Now of course the obvious response might be that it should not be beyond the wit of a Cambridge graduate to search online for the information they need. 

Before accepting that response we should pause for a moment, though, since it reveals a problematic assumption: the idea that teaching has to be a vocational calling for everyone.

Making it easier to enter teaching

It’s that exceptionalism that lies behind the idea that eager new staff should seek out teacher training programmes - unlike the civil service, city or law firms where recruiters go to great lengths to seek out and entice potential recruits. 

As my research showed, only a limited proportion of teachers in schools are there because of a long-held dream of entering the profession. In fact, Teacher Tapp recently found that as many as a third of teachers joined the profession on a whim.

Yes, some people dream of teaching from childhood onwards, but with 32,600 new graduate trainees needed to meet recruitment targets just last year, we can’t simply rely on those who seek out a path and make their way into the classroom, whatever it takes. 

Instead, we must make it as easy as possible to “fall” into the profession.

There are options here. Ormiston Trust, for example, runs taster days intended to give potential teachers a chance to become a “teacher for a day” and “try before you teach”. Teach First also runs two-day taster programmes throughout the year, while the government’s “Get into Teaching” programme now runs a portal to find school experiences.

The more that can be done to smooth the transition from taster, to casual work and then into training the better, though.

For example, the school I trained at used to invite former pupils back for paid work during their holidays from university, and as a result, some went straight onto Schools Direct within the school’s trust once they finished their degree.

Others might point to existing posters and career-fair appearances and say that enough is already being done to inform students of the options for getting into the profession.  

Getting tougher on missed targets

However, if a big firm such as the professional services company PWC - which was looking for 1,900 new starters in 2022, (compared with the 2,610 teachers needed just for physics) - fails to meet its targets, it doesn’t let its graduate recruitment team off the hook. 

It’s not an option for them to say, “Well we turned up at all the careers fairs and put up some posters.” 

Of course, people might also ask: “How can we compete with the money offered by private sector firms?”

It’s a fair point - but not a complete answer. For instance, Ella, one of the graduates I met last week, told me that a consultancy firm had sent her a personalised email inviting her to an interview and highlighting her aptitude for a role, citing the £55,000 starting salary on offer.

Her jaw dropped - but it still didn’t persuade her to apply.

What appeals to her about teaching is the chance to work in the early years or in a special school, where she thinks teachers can make a huge difference by providing the right opportunities to pupils whose needs might otherwise be overlooked. 

What she needs more than the lure of a big pay packet is a personalised approach combined with a way to dip her toe in the water without having to commit to a PGCE or Teach First, both of which felt like too big a commitment. 

What she needed was a foot in the door that could help her fall into the profession.

‘Cold spots’ for teacher training

Government policy might not be helping potential teachers like Ella, either.

There was an uproar earlier this month when multiple training providers in rural parts of the country lost their accreditation, because regional cold spots in areas like Cumbria could mean potential trainees struggle to find local opportunities. 

Given that Teacher Tapp found that a quarter of the teachers who had taken a postgraduate route did so in their university town, Professor Becky Allen has pointed out that when a university loses its PGCE programme students are less likely to stumble across a poster that tempts them to “give it a go”. 

We need more teachers than ever and the government has an important role to play in this by removing obstacles such as constantly moving goalposts on bursaries, combined with tuition fees that might never be repaid and wages that are falling behind other graduate careers.

However, entry into teaching often depends on a random set of collisions. ITT providers, MATs and individual schools can all play a role in generating the happy coincidences that make it possible to get hooked on teaching. 

Loic Menzies is a former chief executive of The Centre for Education and Youth and a visiting fellow at Sheffield Institute of Education.